As if USAF Genearals weren’t already Pissy enough, it appears that General Charles Davis is upset about Boeing’s sales pitch for the F-18 E/F.
He’s upset because Boeing is, “predicting further cost overruns and delays for the F-35 program,” and using it as a selling point for the Super Bug.
Seeing as how the JSF has already had a, “50% cost increase and an at least 18-month delay during the first seven years of development,” perhaps the good general should look inward, rather than outward.
Telescoping rounds have always theoretically been a very useful concept: Put the round and ammunition completely within the case, with the space not taken up by the round being filled with propellant:
The idea is that when the round is fired, the ignition charge kicks the round into the barrel.
The round is more compact shorter, and the full cylindrical shape is packs more efficiently.
The devil has always been in the detail, and people have been working on this for about 30 years, and the folks at BAE Systems have apparently worked out the kinks on a 40mm autocannon:
It feeds through the trunnion, the pivot point for elevation, and then rotates 90 degrees to be inline with the barrel. This means that the feed point never moves relative to the turret, you don’t have to deal with flexible feeds.
In any case, the telescoping round allows more propellant and more explosive charge in the round, so the performance for BAE’s MTIP 2 (Manned Turret Integration Program 2) has a punch equivalent to a 50mm round, but the cannon is about the size of a 30mm cannon.
Pretty neat, and even neater is where they got their feed concepts:
The cylindrical rounds also pack more efficiently and are easier to handle, which is where the brewery comes in: BAE Systems designers visited a local brewery to gather ideas for automated storage systems and conveyors that would be used in the turret’s autoloader.
Beer, it does a cannon good.
At Farnborough.
MiG is saying that it will be MiG-29K carrier variant to the Indian Navy shortly.
Unfortunately, the ship that they are to serve on, the Admiral Gorshkov, is still in refit in Russia, and it will be at least two years late.
Of interest is that the MiG-29K’s avionics will operate on a MIL STD 1553B bus, a western standard.
I think that this is targeted at the specialized “Beluga” bloated variants used by Boeing and Airbus to transport sub assemblies of their aircraft.
Since the AN-124 is designed from the get go as a freighter, there are some advantages, such as a lower deck allowing for freight to be driven directly on.
It ain’t pretty, but it’s less ugly than the Airbus/Boeing “bloat planes”:
I’ve been posting a lot on the insolvency of innovative aircraft diesel manufacture and the conflict with it’s primary customer, Diamond Aircraft.
Well, it appears that their divorce is now final, with Diamond washing its hands of a bid for the engine manufacturer, and hoping for certification of its aircraft diesel in the next few months, followed by swapping out the old Thielert diesels.
Seeing as how much of the purchase price of the Thielert engine included scheduled maintenance, and now that it is in bankruptcy, it’s no longer covered, this is probably the best course of action for Diamond.
Background here.
Well, the GE-SNECMA joint venture CFM gas announced that they will be working on an advanced engine for the next generation of narrow body airliner (A320 and B-737) replacements using what they call Leap-X technologies.
In addition they are teaming with NASA to apply these technoligies involved in this engine to an advanced open rotor concept (Paid Subscription Required):
It’s clearly the same no-gearbox path that GE took in the late 1980s with its “un-ducted fan”, which was killed by lower oil costs and noise concerns regarding the counter-rotating fan interaction.
The research, at least for now is about keeping the pressure ratio low on the fans to minimize noise levels.
Rolls Royce is also working on open rotor studies (Paid Subscription Required), though it’s concept is more conventional, with a gearbox.
It’s applying the EU funded DREAM research program, and will probably borrow quite a lot from the 10,000+ hp TP400 turboprop used on the A400 military transport.
One of the interesting things here is that both concepts show the same number of blades front and rear, which I think will change, because you get simultaneous interaction pulses from all the blades at once then, which means lots o’ noise.
Basically, it comes down to the alternatives being too damn expensive or too politically restricted, and the additional payload/range/performance of the upgraded Gripen making it quite competitive, particularly with the option of an AESA radar.
This quote is intertesting to me:
[Robert] Kemp [senior vice president for international sales & marketing at Gripen International] says many potential F-35 customers were uncomfortable with the “You’re either with us or against us” approach to fighter sales. He claimed that growing dissatisfaction with technology transfer, workshare and offsets, coupled with F-35 cost escalation and slipping timescales have led “more and more JSF customers coming to talk to us about a replacement for JSF”.
It’s one of the concerns I have about the F-35 is that it appears to have a closed nature, and if a competitor to Lockheed-Martin’s weapons systems wants to get certified, I think that there are doubts about how cooperative LM will be.
I would also direct you toward Bill Sweetman’s snippets of an interview with Mr. Kemp:
“Schedule. So many governments have been grossly embarrassed by programs that run years late.” (Consider the Australian Seasprites and Canada’s CH-148 Cyclone.) Kemp points out that the last major Gripen program, the C/D update, came in on time and cost.
“Price.” Kemp continues. “If it works and you can deliver it, the price – including operational cost – is extremely important.” International politics are less important than they used to be, Kemp says, but domestic issues are more so. (It was the activism of coalition partners that forced the Netherlands government to re-evaluate its choice of the JSF.)
Close air support (CAS) missions are becoming more crucial as time goes on, particularly in countries which have supported operations in the Middle East. “The guys commanding those operational units were the ones who got promoted, and their influence and experience will be more important.”
I still think that the sales folks at SAAB are delusional about having a shot at winning in the Netherlands, because the Cloggies have spent too much money on the JSF already, but the basic sales strategy of, “On time and on budget,” seems to me very sound.
More specifically, they will be terminating production after their already-committed total of 124, and upgrading the remainder of their tank corps with some 1,657 1,657 T-90S Bhishma tanks of Russian origin.
Note that the design and development of this tank began in 1974, so after 34 years of development, it finally appears dead.
Not even US defense procurement programs are this screwed up.
It flew for the first time on July 11, on P&W’s 747SP, and they now are calling it the PW1000G.
Picture pron:
Only, what two years late (Paid Subscription Required).
That being said, they are hitting new milestones:
They are still addressing a weight issue though.
Aviation Week discusses possible issues involved in integrating new weapons into the JSF (Paid Subscription Required).
Because of the limited space in the weapons bays, and the highly integrated nature of the fire control systems, it’s beginning to look like integrating home grown weapons into the airframe will be an expensive and difficult proposition.
The article specifically mentions the UK concerns regarding integrating their Meteor air to air missile.
Commercial bankruptcies up 47% year over year.
Not surprising, considering the state of the economy.
It’s not surprising that Boeing will stick with the 767 for the rebid of the tanker program. They have only a few months to respond, and going with, for example, a shortened 777 would be a very difficult thing.
The problem is that the A330 is a better plain, and the A330 MRTT, which is the airframe that Airbus is using, is flying now, even while Boeing is struggling to deliver its 767 tanker to Italy, which is not the same airframe as is proposed for the US tanker.
Airbus is clearly the better choice, even the GAO review said that while faulting the selection process, but politics being what it is, I would give Airbus a no better than 50/50 chance of winning this if it ends up a soul source bid.
Well, it looks like the Navy is coming to its senses, and that it will be trying to terminate its DDG-1000 Zumwalt class destroyer at just two ships.
I think that this is a good thing. They are too damn expensive to build many, and whatever capabilities you add, you lose too much coverage. A large ship (14,500 tons) simply can not be in two places at once, while two (or three) smaller Burke class destroyers can.
It’s the sensible decision, but I agree with Galrahn that there is a risk that Congress may overrule the Navy, because there are prominent people who want the defense pork, which would be a damn shame.
It’s not an ironclad commitment to purchasing the aircraft, but I think that some sort or series production is almost a certainty for the upgraded Gripen, which is now being referred to as the E/F models.
Below are pictures of the F-22 dropping the 250 lb Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) drop at supersonic speed. This is actually a unique and valuable capability.
It’s a guided weapon, so there is some body lift generated, so if they drop the weapon at above 60,000 feet and supersonic speed, you could strike something 50+ miles away.
There are, however standoff weapons that equal this capability, though the round would be more expensive, but the plane cheaper.
H/t World Wide War Pigs.
This GE-Rolls Royce competitor to the Pratt & Whitney F135 in the JSF has completed a round of tests in STOVL mode, which is generally considered the most demanding part of the engine envelope.
My guess would be the GE/RR want to get as far as possible as quickly as possible, because the Pentagon has repeatedly tried to kill the program, and it’s been Congress keeping it alive.
I have mixed emotions on the F-136. It’s clear that the F-100/F110 competition was a success in the F-15 and F-16, lowering cost and getting increased performance, but the F-110 was a derivative of the F-101 developed for the B-1 bomber, and as such the start up costs were much smaller.
First, it appears that Lockheed-Martin and Boeing will collaborate on the USAF/DARPA Blackswift technology demonstrator. (see below for notational configuration)
Additionally, we are increasingly seeing developments world wide in hypersonics. (Paid Subscription Required)
We have had a number of relatively successful tests in Australia and the USA, and the EU is funding Lapcat II and Atllas concepts (see below), in addition to efforts by France, Italy, the UK, and Germany.
The Russians are working on plasma concepts to manage the shockwave and examining their potential as control surfaces, with, “tests on a magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) plasma generator in a simulated Mach 5.15”, being conducted, while the Japanese are looking at a combined cycle turbine with a cooled intake called the “S-Engine”
In terms of meaningful applications, I think that some sort of storable fuel, not the LH2 currently used for demonstrators, will have to be a part of the equation.
Only 12 years after a fuel tank explosion killed 230 on TWA flight 800.
Thank you for your prompt and timely response, guys.